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Its early evening in Kumamoto now, and the sky is painted with a beautiful
sunset, with a sharp, white crescent moon hanging clearly over reds and
yellows, the mountains looming large and blue in the distance – like a
scene straight out of a Chinese landscape painting.
Today had been nice and relaxing. Like everyone else who went out last
night, I had a nice long lie-in, and then an easy morning just reading and
listening to music. In the afternoon, Richard, Nick, Tom, Andy, Ellie (who
was still very hungover, bless her) and me went down to Kumadai to listen
to a speech Marie (Nick’s tutor; her name is pronounced MA-ri-eh) had to
make as part of her course. Marie’s speech was all about her experiences
as an exchange student at Durham University. She displayed a lot of photos
and even a movie from Durham, which made us all feel very natsukashii
(nostalgic). It was a good speech; even though it was all in Japanese, we
could understand quite a bit of it, which shows how clear it was.
After Marie’s speech, we went into town to use the internet at the
International Centre. Since there were five of us to two computers (Ellie
had gone home at this point, she was suffering quite badly!), it was quite
a long wait for each of us to take our turns. In the meantime, I started
reading an English book from the Centre’s small library, which was a
collection of short stories by a Japanese author called Rambo(!). I got
through three, which were really good; they reminded me a lot of Edgar
Allen Poe as they were all tales of mystery and endings with a macabre
twist. I’ll have to try and buy that book somewhere.
Once we had all used the internet, we went back into the town. There was
some sort of festival going on today; outside Kumamoto Castle, there were
several market stalls selling food and craftware. And just outside of
Shimotori, there was some sort of dramatic art street performance going
on: a group of white and black gaijin and Japanese were all dressed up in
African ethnic costume, and making a terrific noise with drums, shouting
and even saxophones, while performers in both African and Asian costume
performed intense, tribal dances. It was really enjoyable and fascinating
to watch – and to hear! If there’s one thing to be said about Kumamoto,
it’s that you never know what’s going to happen next!
It all hit home just how advanced, and therefore how wealthy, Japan is
compared to Britain. People are saying that Japan is facing severe
economic depression, yet you’d never guess, judging by even a
comparatively small city like Kumamoto: the streets are clean, the
technology available is cheap and hugely advanced, the stores and cafes
are spotless and tidy, EVERYONE is dressed very well, the public transport
services are very advanced and efficient, all the food is high quality,
the night-time is filled with lights and sounds, and random events like
street dancers can happen with no publicity! In many ways, Japan does seem
like an enlightened nation. It’s not surprising if the Japanese feel proud
about their country.
Got to watch some Japanese TV this evening in Julie’s room. We watched a
game show in which the contestants had to translate a short passage of
English speech into Japanese (quite good for us to watch!) and then a
dubbed Korean drama. However, one of the best things about Japanese TV are
the adverts – some of them are just plain bizarre! You could watch
Japanese TV almost for the adverts alone.
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